Contributor holizz

There's no option in the Brainstorm profile settings to specify my gender, therefore why does it say "His ideas", "Ideas he promoted", etc. on the contributor page of everybody?

I suggest either swapping he for they and his for their, or rephrasing the text to remove the pronouns.

Ubiquity should set up encrypted swap, unless told not to. Because encrypted swap doesn't require inputting a password every boot, and it increases security against forensic investigation.

I got an email today about Sun Student Courses ( http://www.sunstudentcourses.com/ ). It's a Moodle courseware thing which gives you PDF certificates if you complete a course (which consist of PDFs to read and quizzes for assessment - it doesn't even require that you even use OpenSolaris).

I figure Ubuntu could do a similar thing, with a basic end-user introduction course, a basic server administration course, maybe word processing/spreadsheets (with OOo), introduction to programming in [language], and things along those lines. This probably won't appeal most advanced users, but it's a nice little achievement so people can say more than "I can use Ubuntu", but maybe put "passed Introduction to Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop course" on their CV/resume.

If there's some kind of quality control before the content is uploaded to the main courseware site then we can have a small amount of well-made courses officially backed by Ubuntu. Some of the courses could be based on Ubuntu Training, and would provide a method of self-assessment for people who can't find anywhere that teaches Ubuntu.

Some courses could be based on the Ubuntu Training project. If we can have a few very well-made courses officially backed by Ubuntu then it could be good.

Rather than just the keyboard and mouse, can we enable some other input devices for X?

For example if I were making a media centre PC I'd like to be able to plug in a USB joypad (or anything that's USB HID compatible) and move the mouse cursor around, click things, etc..

This is distinct from idea #5256: Good support for gaming input devices ( http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/5256/ ) in that I'm pushing for supporting alternative input devices for X, not improving support for gaming devices in games. i.e. My PS2 pad works fine for games, but I'd like to use one of the sticks to move the cursor around in X and have buttons set up for clicking.

Firefox's "Select Helper Application" dialogue is poor.

When opening a file using an external application, you can usually select the application you want to use with a drop-down box. If the application you want to use isn't in the drop-down you have to select the application ... with a file selection dialogue. This really is a pathetic implementation, and wholly unuseful. It doesn't even let you specify command-line arguments.

I suggest that the Ubuntu Firefox Modifications addon (ubufox) be extended to replace Firefox's "Select Helper Application" dialogue with Nautilus' "Open With" dialogue. This dialogue lists many applications that you might want to open a file with, and you can also choose to enter the name of a command. And, if you actually have the need to, you can select a programme with a file manager.

For all applications still relying on /dev/dsp, prepend the command with /usr/bin/padsp in the .desktop file.

wavesurfer, for instance, looks for /dev/sound/dsp (which doesn't even exist) and so cannot play or record sounds (which is rather important). Some other programmes just refuse to play sounds if another process is playing sound.